Page 142 of Blood Moon

“What?”

“I say Beth’s name, and you get all weird.”

“I don’t get weird. I don’t even know what that means.”

She gave him an arch look. “Yes, you do.”

Yes, he did, and, in spite of himself, he grinned. “Don’t be a smart-ass.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You gonna be okay? Honestly. I’ll spend the night here if you want me to.”

“No, they put something in the IV bag to ‘help me relax.’ I’m already getting sleepy. Maybe I’ll get lucky and conk out before my next visitors get here.”

“Good idea. Play possum.” He stood but kept her hand in his. “I’ll be here early tomorrow morning. Between now and then call me for any reason. Swear.”

She crossed her heart. “Swear. You’re my go-to person, Dad.”

He met Beth in the lobby. As they walked to his car, he recapped Molly’s and his conversation.

“She’s suffered a trauma,” Beth said. “She’ll need therapy, more than likely for a while, maybe forever. But you are her mainstay, John. You’re her dragon slayer.”

“She said I was her go-to.”

“See? Told ya.” After a moment, she added, “Don’t underestimate the value of that. My father never faced down a dragon for me.”

“His loss,” he said, meaning it. “But after seeing how you responded to the emergency this morning, I don’t think you need a dragon slayer. Only a damn fool would mess with you.”

They got into the car, but he didn’t start it. “Okay if we sit here for a minute? I want to call Derby, see how it’s going with Wallace.” He placed the call and put it on speaker.

Derby answered and after exchanging hellos, he said, “Regarding Barker, we’re pressing to get the ballistics report back on the bullet recovered from Frank Gray. Lab is trying to lift fingerprints off your service weapon, but Barker was smart enough to make that difficult.”

“And even if his are recovered, he could explain it by saying he picked it up after I placed it on his desk.”

“Right. I think this is going to be a preponderance of evidence case. You and Mitch Haskell are material witnesses. So is everybody who saw you surrender that gun. I think Barker will be sunk; I’ve just got to figure out how to do it.”

“What about Victor Wallace?”

“Oh, he’s cute,” the detective said. “Just ask him.”

“He’s playing you?”

“Exactly like you said he would.”

“Has he said anything about Crissy Mellin?”

“He asked if he could watchCrisis Pointtonight. We denied him that privilege. He speculated on where and how her body had been disposed of. He also ventured that Billy Oliver might not have been the guilty party. He asked us if we’d ever considered that someone else had abducted her.”

“Did he bring all that up before or after you’d pressed him on it?”

“That’s just it, John. Nobody had even mentioned Crissy Mellin to him.”

“Another wink,” Beth exclaimed. “He’s flirting. Please, Detective, if he gives up anything, let me know immediately. I’m hoping to keep that episode from airing, so time is of the essence.”

“I’ll goad him. If anything comes of it, I’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you.”

John disconnected, then propped his elbow on the steering wheel, cupped his hand over his mouth, and stared through the windshield.

“You’ve got that dent between your eyebrows,” Beth said.